We had been evading storm clouds all week without getting soaked. Some beautiful clouds went by us.
I love this weather!
On this particular day, we decided to stop right by home where we often pick up a few dozen more walleyes to top off the day.
It was at about this moment when Kerry said, "We're gonna get wet."
He suggested that as long as we're going to get wet, we might as well get suited up and go back out for a while... so we did. We got into our rain gear and went out. This doesn't look like much, but we headed west towards a nearby island and this photo is looking at the sun through a wall of water. We got dumped on.
Halfway to that island in the downpour, we stopped and turned around and saw the most amazing rainbow - and a doubler to boot! (Pardon the less-than-amazing photos.) We usually don't see a rainbow from end to end like this one.
I tried to line up two of the photos to show you. (The blob at the top is my hand over the top of the camera to keep water off the lens. The tiny island in the middle with the small white spot on it is home - that's Lost Island.
It was amazing. We could certainly see where the pots of gold were located!
I've never seen trees lit up like they were there. The rainbows lasted abut 35 minutes and I took over 100 photos.
Every gull in the area was packed onto this one rock pile watching the rainbows just like we were. They kept saying they had never seen anything like it. They just stared at the rainbows, wishing they had cameras.
And looking west again, here is the sun coming out the other end of that little storm.
We fished out at that nearby spot and ended the day with this sunset. Just beautiful.
And a little shore lunch at suppertime. Note the wood table and lamplight.
We had a wonderful week and fished many of our favorite spots from throughout the years. Here was a nice day at Albert's Bay.
And this year's Smiley photo! I was thinking out loud about what sort of backdrop to choose for Smiley. I have photographed him on rocks, lichens, moss, pine needles, branches, trees, mushrooms, stumps, wood docks ... and Kerry suggested the side of a fish. Perfect! Here, Smiley is enjoying being tickled by a pectoral fin.
(In order to achieve the best color, the walleye was alive during the photo shoot, which added to the challenge. He became lunch soon after!)
This was our 19th trip there in 17 years. The totals for this year: 408 walleyes, 28 northern, 4 smallmouth, 1 perch and 1 rock bass for a total of 442 fish. An average year, which is great by any standards!
Thanks for following our little adventure, guys! We sure live for it every year.